The Prologue of the Gospel of John identifies Jesus Christ as the eternal Word or Logos of the Father, who became flesh for the salvation of the world. Yet the world that Christ saves is his world from the beginning, for he is also the Logos of creation, the one “through whom all things were made” (John 1:3). This divinely revealed claim has profound implications not only for theology but also for metaphysics, whose relation to Christian doctrine was undermined over the course of the twentieth century, such that the Christian faith has become an increasingly private affair rather than a credible account of reality and an invitation to participate more fully in it. With Christ, the Logos of Creation, John Betz seeks to recover a Christ-centered, analogical metaphysics and to establish the indispensability of such metaphysics for Christian theology and the Christian vision of reality. In Part I, he dispels the fog of confusion about analogical metaphysics and addresses the ecumenical issues posed by Karl Barth’s famous rejection of the analogia entis. Part II demonstrates how analogical metaphysics helps to explain Christian doctrine and sheds new light on the interrelationship between individual doctrines, including Trinitarian theology, Christology and soteriology, and theological anthropology. In Part III, Betz explores how this analogical perspective can aid in resolving a number of theological disputes, including the metaphysical relationship between nature and grace and the issue of divine humility. Finally, Part IV outlines further directions toward a fully Christological metaphysics that is proportionate both to the challenges of modern theology and the reality of our life in Christ the Logos.

Does all knowledge of God come through Christ alone, or can human beings discover truths about God philosophically? The Analogy of Being assembles essays by expert Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox theologians to examine the relationship between divine revelation in the person of Jesus Christ and the philosophical capacities of natural reason. These essays were inspired by the lively, decades-long debate between Karl Barth and Erich Przywara, which was first sparked in 1932 when Barth wrote that the use of natural theology in Roman Catholic thinking was the invention of the Antichrist. The contributors to The Analogy of Being analyze and reflect on both sides of Barth and Przywara s spirited discourse, offering diverse responses to a controversy reaching to the very core of Christian faith and theology. It would be difficult to match the range and quality of commentators on this historic exchange between a Catholic philosopher and a renowned Reformed theologian on a subject of enduring significance, given the centrality of analogy to any issue in philosophical theology. Moreover, the contributions exhibit how the issues have come to span ecclesial boundaries as their import has progressively evolved. A splendid collection! David Burrell, C.S.C. Uganda Martyrs University A profound testimony to the enduring significance of the analogia entis debate between Erich Przywara and Karl Barth. Hans Boersma Regent College In a fresh ecumenical context, this extraordinary volume rekindles the mid-twentieth-century encounter between ressourcement thinkers and metaphysical theology. The voices of Przywara, Barth, Balthasar, and others speak anew through leading theologians of our own day in these masterfully orchestrated essays. Matthew Levering University of Dayton

According to the Christian faith, Jesus Christ is the ultimate revelation not only of the nature of God the Creator but also of how God the Creator relates to the created order. The New Testament explicitly relates the act of creation to the person of Jesus Christ - who is also a participant within creation, and who is said, by his acts of participation, to have secured creation's ultimate redemption from the problems which presently afflict it. Christian theology proposes that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word and Wisdom of God, the agent in whom the Spirit of God is supremely present among us, is the rationale and the telos of all things - time-space as we experience and explore it; nature and all its enigmas; matter itself. Christology is thus utterly fundamental to a theology of creation, as this is unfolded both in Scripture and in early Christian theology. For all this, the contemporary conversation about science and faith tends, to a remarkable degree, to neglect the significance of Jesus Christ, focusing instead on a generic "God of wonder" or "God of natural theology." Such general theism is problematic from the perspective of Christian theology on many levels and has at times led to a more or less deistic theology: the impression that God has created the world, then largely left it to itself. Such a theology is far removed from classical Christian renderings of creation, providence, redemption, and eschatology. According to these, the theology of creation is not just about remote "beginnings," or the distant acts of a divine originator. Rather, the incarnate Jesus Christ is himself - remarkably - the means and the end for which creation itself exists. If we would think aright about our world, study it and live within it wisely, we must reckon centrally with his significance. What might such a bold claim possibly mean, and why is Jesus Christ said by Christian theology to be so important for understanding God's overall relationship to the created order? What does this importance mean for science? Christ and the Created Order addresses these questions by gathering insights from biblical scholars, theologians, historians, philosophers, and scientists. This interdisciplinary collection of essays reflects on the significance of Jesus Christ for understanding the created world, particularly as that world is observed by the natural sciences. Contributors to Christ and the Created Order include Marilyn McCord Adams, Richard Bauckham, Deborah Haarsma, Paul Moser, Murray Rae, James K. A. Smith, Norman Wirzba, N. T. Wright, and more.

After Enlightenment: Hamann as Post-Secular Visionary is a comprehensive introduction to the life and works of eighteenth-century German philosopher, J. G. Hamann, the founding father of what has come to be known as Radical Orthodoxy. Provides a long-overdue, comprehensive introduction to Haman's fascinating life and controversial works, including his role as a friend and critic of Kant and some of the most renowned German intellectuals of the age Features substantial new translations of the most important passages from across Hamann's writings, some of which have never been translated into English Examines Hamann's highly original views on a range of topics, including faith, reason, revelation, Christianity, biblical exegesis, Socrates, theological aesthetics, language, sexuality, religion, politics, and the relationship between Judaism and Christianity Presents Hamann as the 'founding father' of a distinctly post-modern, post-secular theology and, as such, as an alternative to the 'postmodern triumvirate' of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida Considers Hamann's work as a touchtone of modern Jewish-Christian dialogue, in view of debates with his friend Moses Mendelssohn Explores Hamann's role as the visionary founder of a 'metacritical' movement that radically calls into question the basic principles of modern secular reason, and thus reprises the debate between those defending Hamann's views and those labeling him the bête noir of the Enlightenment

In numerous works both before and after his papal election, John Paul II offers ample reflection on the themes of personhood, relationality, and sexual complementarity, but while he advances a clearly articulated theology of femininity and motherhood, as in his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem, he might seem to offer no equivalent treatment of masculinity and fatherhood. In Viri Dignitatem, David Delaney seeks to surface and systematize the rich but often overlooked theology of masculinity and fatherhood that is found dispersed throughout John Paul II’s writings, demonstrating its essentiality for understanding his larger anthropology. In the first part of the study, Delaney treats the foundations of this anthropology, establishing John Paul II’s thought on personhood, relation, and human action. Building on this, the second part considers sexual differentiation, drawing out from John Paul II’s teaching on the body, femininity, Mary, and the Church his corresponding perspective on masculinity, which is itself rooted in nuptial complementarity and the revealing work of Christ. The third part focuses on John Paul II’s theology of fatherhood, which Delaney presents as both a natural and spiritual vocation that is based on the Fatherhood of God as this is manifested and imaged by the incarnate Son. Finally, the fourth part provides a synthetic assessment of this theology of masculinity and fatherhood, showing its coherence and addressing contemporary criticisms and misinterpretations. At a time of accelerating crises of sexuality, the family, and fatherhood, Delaney’s Viri Dignitatem provides a welcome and important elaboration of John Paul II’s teaching on the dignity and vocation of man.

In contemporary considerations of purgatory, there is increasing ecumenical agreement among Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants about the need for spiritual purification and healing before a soul can enter into the glory of God’s presence in heaven. Yet for the broader tradition of the Church, this account of what souls require from God is paired with a complementary account of what God, in his justice, requires of the soul, including satisfaction of its “debt of punishment” (reatus poenae). Although the transformative and retributive aspects of purgatory are often seen today as being at odds with one another, Fr. Luke Wilgenbusch proposes in Saved as through Fire to recover their proper and traditional harmony. Taking Thomas Aquinas as his primary guide, Wilgenbusch identifies and explores the full array of the consequences of sin—both immanent and extrinsic—that purgatory resolves. Through an attentive retrieval of Aquinas’s teaching on sin, its effects, and its remedy in Christ, Wilgenbusch clarifies how purgatory indeed heals and purifies souls from their guilt and disordered attachments, and how it simultaneously serves as a form of punishment and a means of satisfaction, enabling souls to contribute, in union with Christ, to the restoration of the divine order of creation damaged by their sin. Beyond shedding valuable light on the doctrine of purgatory, the integrated vantage on purification, punishment, and satisfaction provided by Saved as through Fire holds promise, too, for a better understanding of the Church’s practices of penance, reparation, and the offering of indulgences.

Starting in the early to mid-nineteenth century, Catholic theology witnessed a profound retrieval of patristic reflection on the interrelationship of the Virgin Mary and the Church. This dynamic reached a doctrinal high point with the declarations of Vatican II and Pope Paul VI concerning Mary as “type of the Church” and “Mother of the Church,” and it also provided the impetus for further theological exploration of the deeper unity of the Mother of Christ and his mystical body. In A Bride Adorned, John L. Nepil examines how this interrelationship has been formulated in modern theology in terms of perichoresis, a notion of unconfused reciprocity or interpenetration drawn from Christology and Trinitarian theology first applied to Mary and the Church by the nineteenth-century German theologian Matthias Scheeben. In the first part of the study, Nepil treats the foundations of this formulation, outlining its historical background and creative articulation by Scheeben. The second part tracks developments of Scheeben’s insight in the thought of twentieth-century theological luminaries Charles Journet, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Louis Bouyer, and Leo Scheffczyk, each of whom distinctively articulate the shared conviction that neither Mary nor the Church can be understood apart from each other. The third part draws out the far-reaching doctrinal and pastoral implications of this deepened account of the Mary–Church relation, establishing its vital importance for ongoing theological and ecclesial renewal. Through his careful engagement with these figures, Nepil shows how Mary and the Church are to be understood as two realizations of a single mystery. This vantage on Mary and the Church sheds new light on the vision of the Council Fathers at Vatican II, and it charts a course for the Church’s flourishing via a return to her Marian heart.